An attempt to help explain the mysteries and magic that are part and parcel of 'probation'.

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

What We Think We Know

What we know and what we think we know.1. October 28th was definitely the day decided upon by the MoJ to make the announcement regarding the successful Tier 1 bidders. It didn't happen.2. We know Napo's solicitors gave the MoJ until 4.00pm yesterday to respond and answer certain specific questions. It didn't happen.3. We know the MoJ has until 4.00pm today in order to respond.4. We know some details of Napo's legal challenge because they were published yesterday by Ian Dunt following a Napo briefing.5. We are pretty sure something is happening today because of this comment from yesterday:-

"Email from CEO - written ministerial statement to Parliament in respect of preferred bidders for 21 CRCs - maybe subject to change. Teleconference with BGSW (Bristol Gloucestershire Somerset and Wiltshire) tomorrow and immediately following this CEO issuing a letter to all staff, along with letter from preferred bidder, a list of all preferred bidders nationwide, a q&a from TR team and a letter from Secretary of State."

6. Another comment:-

"Bidders will know now, it will be embargoed, they will have been afforded time to prepare announcements for the stock exchange (listed companies) and press releases. That is how it works."

7. For those in NPS, Angela Cossins reminds everyone there's a staff survey:-

34 comments:

At the end of today ee may know who's been selected as the prefered bidders, but will we also know who the competition to those prefered bidders were (if indeed there was competion to the prefered bidder in particular regions)?

On probationAt the beginning of this year, the MoJ set out plans to restrict the probation service’s role to writing court reports, overseeing risk management, and handling high-risk offenders: other offenders will in future be handled by contractors, it said, while support services will be extended to the short-sentence prisoners currently released without a probation referral. Asked what the department will be focusing on as it develops these plans, Brennan explains that it’s working hard to identify both effective ways of working with offenders, and robust models for the delivery of PBR services.

“We’ve got lots evidence about the things that help people get jobs and reduce their rates of reoffending,” she says. “And we’ve done lots of work on the kinds of things that we think the contractors will want to offer. But we don’t want to be too prescriptive about how they rehabilitate offenders. A really key thing is how we structure the contracts so that the cash flows in ways that allow people to set up and provide services, but we don’t pay for interventions that don’t achieve a result.”

The MoJ chief also points out that her department has a fair bit of experience in commissioning offender management services: she cites London’s Community Payback scheme, in which the contractor Serco works with the probation service to manage offenders. “We start with the advantage that we have the third sector and the private sector already engaged in this over quite a long period of time, and there are a number of partnerships that are quite well established,” she says.

Critics have complained that the MoJ’s plans suggest that services will be commissioned at a regional level, giving voluntary organisations little chance to compete against their much larger private sector competitors – and Brennan says that her department will learn from the DWP’s Work Programme, which has frequently been attacked for failing to provide the anticipated volumes of work for charities and social enterprises. “We’ve brought in advice and help from the Work Programme to help us see what works and what we need to do differently for our own sector,” she says. “We’re really conscious of the learning around that.”

Brennan is clearly aware of the need for her department to develop stronger project management and commissioning skills, and of the complexity and scale of the programmes on which it’s embarking. That awareness, of course, does not guarantee success – but the government does now appear to recognise exactly what went wrong in the courts interpreters scheme: in its formal response to the Public Accounts Committee’s critical report, published four days after CSW’s interview with the MoJ chief, it accepted all the MPs’ recommendations (see box). So the MoJ is now moving to head off the risk that history repeats itself in the probation services outsourcing project. If its efforts are in vain, then we may well see the the wheels of government once again changing up several gears, as a team of troubleshooters flits across Whitehall – only this time, the crack troops will not be leaving the MoJ for the frontline, but arriving in Petty France to deal with the ministry’s own emerging problems.

I have to say, that I am confused about all that is going on. Preferred bidders announced today it seems, but NAPO have given MoJ til end of today to reply, with possible JR application in by end of the week?. Would it not have been better for NAPO to time the JR differently to try to prevent the announcement of preferred bidders? Or would that have happened anyway?

I agree absolutely anon 8:54. Was the midnight oil burning at Petty France last night whilst officials scrabbled together a response to NAPO's request? I think not. I am deeply suspicious of the request for more time and dont trust the MoJ one iota. I think manoeuvring is going on behind the scenes and I am worried. Deb

It's really depressing when considering the spin/justification that has been made by the Govt and the lack of effective parliamentary scrutiny due to various ministers' not providing full/truthful replies as demonstrated via They Work for You site.

I don't consider I was naive to all of this in Govt, but being so close as we all are, and witnessing the dismantling of a Service without any real basis apart from profit has taken even an old cynic such as me aback.

There is no democracy or accountability in this country. It's all going to hell in a handcart.

Same appeal process has previously resulted in contracts being researched or withdrawn. Creates delays which could takes the process into purdah or beyond the election. Could be another potential deal-breaker.

Having a PREFERRED BIDDER ANNOUNCED is Just a step in the process - Contracts have yet to be Let and the Bidders take over.

The next step is when they move in to prepare to takeover and after that the actual date the contract is signed and set to become operative.

Meanwhile The Courts may have their say if they decide their is a case to answer as far as the anticipated application by Napo for a Judicial Review is concerned

Clearly the Government are not affording their employees the same amount of reasonableness as the employees have given them by delaying application to court even though the employers have not responded as they apparently indicated they would by 4 pm yesterday - the extra time they said they needed.

The MOJ are using a high degree of gamesmanship, yet acting on behalf of the State (we are after all mere subjects - required to pay for it but not having it done on our behalf).

Hopefully the media will start taking a little notice now, but seeing as very few will understand the complexity of all this (can anyone truthfully say they understand it all? - I certainly do not)

A privately-run prison in Mississippi holding “seriously mentally ill” prisoners stands accused of being dirty, dangerous and corrupt. East Mississippi Correctional Facility, operated by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), is the subject of a lawsuit brought on behalf of several prisoners at the facility.

After widespread criticism of conditions inside the same prison the previous operator, the GEO group, discontinued its contract with the state in 2012. At the time, the GEO group said that the prison was “"financially underperforming."

A lawsuit first filed a year ago by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center alleged that “grossly inhumane conditions have cost many prisoners their health, and their limbs, their eyesight and even their lives.”

Photos taken as part of a tour of the prison, showed “charred door frames, broken light fixtures and toilets, exposed electrical wires, and what advocates said were infected wounds on prisoners’ arms and legs,” according to the New York Times.MTC are an American Company which runs private prisons in the US. They are part of the consortium which has won the bid for what was London Probation Trust. There are other horror stories on the net if you want to take a look.

It's My Blog

Welcome to the wonderful world of probation! These are the personal thoughts of an ordinary probation officer struggling to come to terms with constant change, whilst trying to do a useful job for society. Sadly, change is so often obviously not progress. I am fully aware that my views do not represent official policy of government, my Service or possibly anyone else - but hey - it's my blog!

ATV 1962 Windsor Davies

About Me

A grumpy, disillusioned, CQSW trained, generic, main grade probation officer based in a small English town. All my contemporaries have either left, retired or been promoted. Newer colleagues simply don't understand the journey I've been on from advise, assist and befriend. (If there is anyone of similar name in the NAPO handbook, it's not me).